Ballari: Pramod Muthalik, the chief of Sri Ram Sene was released on bail on Sunday after he was arrested on Thursday from Hassan just before the state-wide protest called by VHP and Bajarang Dal.

The VHP and Bajarang Dal had called for protests after the government celebrated Tipu Jayanthi and the clashes that erupted in Madikeri which resulted in the death of a VHP activist. Muthalik was lodged in the central prison at Ballari.

As a precaution, twenty others were also arrested sections 107 and 151 of Criminal Procedure Code which pertain to apprehension on breach of peace and tranquility.

After release, Muthalik addressing the media said that he was not a terrorist. He further said that there was no concrete reason for his arrest.

However, as soon as Muthalik was arrested, his supporters had threatened of intense protests if he was not released within three days.

Mangaluru: Prasad Attavar, the chief of Rama Sene has been detained by central crime branch (CCB) police of Mangaluru in connection to the murder of Kannada scholar and researcher Prof M M Kalburgi.

It is said that Prasad has been detained for interrogation by CCB. Prasad has been handed over to Bunder police station and is being interrogated, sources said.

As per sources, some messages related to M M Kalburgi were circulated in the social media carrying Prasad Attavar’s photo. Police have been reportedly questioning him to ascertain whether the messages originated from him as his photograph was used.

In 2009, Prasad Attavar had been arrested in connection to the pub attack. At that time, he was in Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Rama Sene. He later broke away and formed his own Rama Sene.

It may be recalled that on August 31, the Bantwal police had arrested Bhuvith Shetty, said to be co-convenor of Bantwal Bajrang Dal unit, for posting a tweet ‘justifying’ Kalburgi’s murder and warning that Prof K S Bhagwan would be ‘next’. He was later released on bail.

Prof Kalburgi was shot dead at his residence in Dharwad on August 30. The police have released sketches of the suspects.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday banned the Hindutva activist and Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik from entering into Goa over so called moral policing issues.

The court slammed Muthalik for beating up girls at a Mangaluru pub a few years ago and restrained him from entering Goa for at least six months.

The SC withheld the Bombay High Court’s order barring the Sri Ram Sene Chief from entering Goa.

Muthalik had moved the Supreme Court against Bombay High Court’s order.

Pramod Muthalik, 52, grabbed the headlines after a group of men headed by him attacked women visiting a pub in Mangaluru in 2009.

In 2010 Muthalik and top aides of his outfit, were caught on camera agreeing to vandalise an art exhibition in return for money. Despite warnings, he continued to deliver provocative statements in public meetings and press conferences.

Panaji: Authorities in North Goa and South Goa districts have renewed the ban on the entry of Pramod Muthalik, chief of the Mangalore-based Hindu right-wing organisation Sri Rama Sene, a government official said on Wednesday.

“Muthalik and his associates from the Sri Rama Sene have been banned from entering the two districts of Goa for 60 days from July 16 (Thursday) onwards as his aggressive statements and comments could hurt community feelings of certain groups and create violence, riots or an affray resulting in serious law and order problem,” a government spokesperson said.

The ban orders against Muthalik – infamous for his alleged communal speeches – were passed by North Goa’s Additional Collector Swapnil Naik and South Goa’s District Collector Sachin Shinde respectively, the spokesperson said.

Muthalik, who first shot to notoriety nearly a decade ago after beating up patrons of a Mangalore pub, was first banned from entering Goa by the then Congress government in 2009, after he publicly announced that he would try to curb the pub culture in Goa and try and establish ‘Hindu culture’ in the state.

The ban was subsequently renewed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in 2014.

Belgaum: After Goa Chief Minister’s banning of hardline Hindutva outfit Sri Ram Sene, from opening its branch in the state, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah today told reporters in Belgaum that the government is mulling a ban on the group.

“Sri Ram Sene has already been banned in Goa and it is inevitable for us to think in the same direction to ensure law and order across the state,” Siddaramaiah said.

Founded in the 1960s, the ring wing Hindu nationalist group came to notoriety in 2009, when its members barged into a pub and attacked young women, accusing them of “indecent behaviour” and “an insult to Hindu culture and tradition”.

The attack which garnered wide spread condemnation, brought Sri Ram Sene to the forthwith of national and international attention, with even RSS favouring a ban on the organisation.

Since then, the group has been involved in a spate of violent speeches and actions especially targeted against women, and the minority Muslim and Christian communities.

In 2012, with a clear intention to flare up communal tensions between different communities, its members had raised Pakistan’s national flag on a government building in Sindgi, near Bijapur, Karnataka and then accused the Muslim community for the mischief. The incident lead to angry protests by Hindu organisations and the stoning of a mosque. Six members of the group were later arrested for “creating communal disharmony.”

The state’s decision to put a ban on the outfit has left its leader fuming. Muthalik said, “Sri Ram Sena is a registered body under the law. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parikkar is a foolish CM and Siddaramaiah need not think on those lines.”

Coimbatore: Hardline Hindutva activist and Shri Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthalik has urged the Tamil Nadu government today, to issue licences to leaders of Hindu outfits to possess firearms for the purpose of what he terms, “self-protection.”

Speaking to reporters, Muthalik, whose extremist group was recently banned by the Goa CM from opening its branch in the state, said though police security is being provided to Hindu outfit leaders, it’s impact will be limited, as it is not possible to give them protection wherever they go. Hence, the demand for licenced weapons.

“Not only Hindu leaders, even Dalits may keep one if they feel their life is in danger. Hindu leaders need guns to protect their lives from extremists as they are being targeted frequently. As many as 127 Hindu leaders were murdered over the last decade. The government should cancel the licence if the weapons are found to be misused,” he said. One interesting point to be noted was, his distinction of Hindu leaders from Dalits.

Muthalik, along with other Hindu leaders also submitted a petition to Coimbatore City Police commissioner AK Viswanathan, which he said will be forwarded to Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. He added that he would submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Communal politics, communal violence all over used women’s bodies as the site of contestation and community honor. This is the worst expression of patriarchal values inherent in the communal politics. We recall that it was the presentation of a road accident between boys of two religious communities that was propagated as an issue of the honor of ‘our girl’ being violated by the ‘other’. The Panchayats were mobilized; openly flaunting the arms, and Muzaffarnagar violence was orchestrated. And that’s not the end of the abuse of ‘our women-their women’ mind set. Post Muzaffarnagar violence, UP is abuzz with various activities aimed at polarizing the communities using this issue.

A Madarassa teacher stated that she was abducted and raped, by Muslim men. She kept changing her versions and later said that she had eloped with her lover. This Raksha Bandhan day (August 2014) hordes of RSS volunteers spread in different parts of Western UP, tying Rakhi (sacred thread, traditionally tied by sister on brothers wrist) to the people and warning them of the threat of the Muslim youth wooing away their ‘girls’ for love jihad. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ has been made the central part of propaganda in Western UP currently.

While the Prime minister states from the ramparts of Red Fort that there should be a moratorium on communalism-casteism for ten years, his party colleague, Chandramohan, a BJP spokesperson from UP says that “incident like that of the madrassa teacher are a part of ‘global love jihad’, which targets vulnerable Hindu girls.” In BJP’s parent organization, RSS, after the shakhas are dispersed the volunteers go from house to house and tell the people about ‘dangers of love jihad’ and need to protect ‘our girls’!

ANHAD report on Muzzafarnagar violence, ‘Evil stalks the land’ exposes the falsehood of ‘Muslim boy talking to Hindu girls to lure them to marry and so to convert to Islam’. Incidentally this was the major concoction around which the riot was engineered. One Baba Rijakdas has come up in Saharanpur in Western UP. He is supposed to cure the love smitten girls, if the boy happens to be a Muslim!

The word “love Jihad’ which played a major role in mobilizing the Hindu community for violence, has a strange history. As such the two components of this word Love and Jihad, who so ever manufactured it, have a very different meaning. Since 9/11 2001 the word Jihad has been employed in the popular media in a very negative way and that meaning has by now become part of the ‘social common sense’.

Contrary to the meaning of the word Jihad in the Holy Quran, which means striving and struggle in the way of God, it came be projected as mindless killing of non-Muslims. The word Love Jihad must be a creation of an evil genius and it has come to be used to further demonize the Muslim community. The propaganda has been that some Muslim organizations are funding Muslim youth, to lure the non Muslim girls, to marry them and to increase the Muslim population. The rumor is being spread that youth are given money to buy motorbike, mobile etc and lure the non Muslim girls.

While doing Google search, if you type, ‘why Hindu Girls are’, the other sentence which pops up on the search engine is ‘are attracted to Muslim boys”! Recently in Maharashtra, a group “Hindu Raksha Samiti” has been claiming to save Hindu religion by breaking up the Hindu Muslim couples, if the girl happens to be a Hindu girl. Not that there are too many such couples, just a suspicion and these self appointed guardians of Hinduism pounce on the boy. A booklet in Marathi on Love Jihad shows a Muslim boy riding the Motor bike, with Hindu girl riding pillion. The word has been so popularized that even a Christian group in Kerala allied with the Sangh progeny, VHP to stop this non existing phenomenon.

In India the word began to be used in coastal Karnataka, Mangalore couple of years ago, and in parts of Kerala. It was Sri Ram Sene founded by RSS trained Swayam Sevak, Pramod Mutalik, which started attack on Hindu girl-Muslim boy couples. The marriages of such combinations started being looked at with suspicion and if parents were opposed to the marriage, Sri Ram Sene would help to take the matter to the court also.

The pretext was that the girl has been forced to marry the Muslim boy. Funnily in the case of Sijalraj and Azghar the judge of Karnatak High Court, went on to give the ruling, that the facts (Love Jihad) had “national ramifications… concern security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking of women,”! So it ordered the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police to hold a thorough investigation into to ‘love jihad’. Pending that, the girl was asked to stay with her parents. The case was that of a simple Hindu Muslim marriage and the girl stood to her version and refused to bow to the social pressures. The police investigation showed that the notion of ‘love Jihad’ is a cooked up one with no substance whatsoever.

In a similar case earlier the Kerala High court while hearing the appeal from two parents passed a similar order. Two Hindu girls had eloped and got converted to Islam and planned to get married. Kerala court also ordered the police authorities to investigate this phenomenon. The police investigation again showed that there is no such phenomenon as Love Jihad. The organizational promotion of such marriages is a hoax but has become part of social understanding.

Shri Ram Sene propaganda stated that over 4000 Hindu girls have been lured into conversions. This concoction was aggressively put across through various mechanisms. This laughable, figment of imagination spread like wild fire and frightened the parents. The trajectory of many of these girls who initially state about their love for the boy and voluntary conversion, changes many a times after they are forced to stay with their parents. Under a sort of emotional blackmail, some girls give in and later say that they were brain washed, shown a Jihadi CD and what not.

We have witnessed such acts in the form of propaganda in Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that ‘Muslim boys are luring Adivasi girls’. There Babu Bajarangi, a VHP-Bajrang Dal activist, who was also a major participant in Gujarat carnage (2002), formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is presented as defense of religion! As such inter-caste, inter-religious marriages are a normal natural part of a plural society. With rise of the communal politics, these inter-religious marriages are being opposed very dangerously.

We have also the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman married to Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business magnate of Kolkata. She was forced to turn around under emotional blackmail from parents and relatives. The details were not known, what is known is that later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to “commit suicide.” In all such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting to support the things totally against the law.

Such campaigns against inter-religion, inter-caste marriages are not only against the spirit of national integration they also aim to control the lives of girls in the patriarchal mode. Women’s bodies are made symbols of community honor. In addition the bogey against a minority is whipped up to aid the divisive politics. It is a double bonus for sectarian politics. Since in patriarchal norms women are regarded as property of man and are made to live under the control structure defined by men, such an issue rouses high emotions. The agenda of communal politics targets minorities, Muslims at one level and promotes patriarchal norms at another.

Over a period of time, from being just a mechanism to control the lives of Hindu girls, a tool to ensure that girls don’t have the right to choose their own life partners, this phrase has been used to instigate violence as witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Most of the pretexts of communal violence are cooked up, gradually manufactured. This term ‘Love Jihad’ by now is being used as a dangerous weapon. Lot of messages on WhatsApp and face book are flying and relating the phenomenon as an international conspiracy of the Muslims. On other side ‘Jodha Akabar’ is being cited as the initial incident of this phenomenon. Clearly one knows that kings used to have such marriages as a part of political alliances, cutting across other boundaries. How cleverly the popular legend of Jodha Akbar is being manipulated!

The politics in the name of religion, the politics of Sangh Parivar here in India or that of Taliban’s in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists, or even Christian fundamentalists all operate on the same wavelength as far as crushing the rights of women is concerned. In line with this starting from Sri Ram Sene, to Babu Bajrangi to those orchestrating violence in Muzaffarnagar, they all operate on the premise, that women are the property of men and their lives have to be controlled. The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled into the thinking of society. This social thinking is being stepped up by the activities of RSS and affiliates who are running door- -to-door campaign to spread the venom of communal hatred.

Porvorim: The Goa government has banned the entry of hardline Hindutva outfit Sri Ram Sene from the state, chief minister Manohar Parrikar announced on the floor of the House yesterday.

“I had asked police to prepare a report and it was sent to the collector to ban the entry of Sri Ram Sene in the state. We have banned Sri Ram Sene,” Parrikar said.

Sri Ram Sene’s controversial leader, Pramod Muthalik had announced his plans to setup a unit of his organisation in Goa last year, though he hadn’t revealed a timeline for its operation.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the All-India Hindu Convention, Muthalik had said that “we had to postpone the launch of the organisation in Goa due to various reasons including the just concluded assembly elections in Karnataka.” He had said that his Belgaum unit head was in touch with around 200 local youth in the state for the cause.

Responding to a question posed by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai on whether the government had banned the group following opposition demands, Parrikar said Sri Ram Sene has been banned because of its plans to enter the state.

Describing the order banning Sri Ram Sene in Goa as ‘toothless’, Rajya Sabha MP and AICC Secretary Shantaram Naik told reporters that, “the ban order imposed by the Goa Government on Sri Ram Sene is without teeth, unless the order is followed by a regular order by the Central Government under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.”

Founded in the 1960s, the ring wing Hindu nationalist group came to notoriety in 2009, when its members barged into a pub and attacked young women, accusing them of “indecent behaviour” and “an insult to Hindu culture and tradition”.

The attack which garnered wide spread condemnation, brought Sri Ram Sene to the forthwith of national and international attention, with even RSS favouring a ban on the organisation.

Since then, the group has been involved in a spate of violent speeches and actions especially targeted against women, and the minority Muslim and Christian communities.

In 2012, with a clear intention to flare up communal tensions between different communities, its members had raised Pakistan’s national flag on a government building in Sindgi, near Bijapur, Karnataka and then accused the Muslim community for the mischief. The incident lead to angry protests by Hindu organisations and the stoning of a mosque. Six members of the group were later arrested for “creating communal disharmony.”

Meanwhile, Sri Ram Sene (SRS) workers burnt effigies of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today and staged protests in parts of Karnataka. They said that the group will defy the ban, and added that Muthalik himself would be present for the launch of the unit in Goa.